U.S.-Israel to Push for Strong Anti-terrorist Action in General Assembly

September 25, 1972

UNITED NATIONS (Sep. 24)

The United States and Israel will both seek determined action by the United Nations for the suppression of terrorism. The US-Israeli affinity of thought on the matter emerged after a 75-minute meeting Friday in Washington between US Secretary of State William P. Rogers and Foreign Minister Abba Eban of Israel. Rogers will address the General Assembly tomorrow. Eban is scheduled to speak at a later date.

State Department spokesman Charles Bray said after the Rogers-Eban meeting and a meeting between Rogers and French Foreign Minister Maurice Schumann, that what the US has "in mind for discussion and decision (at the UN) is the kind of inadmissible, criminal and essentially international" terrorism which includes "death by mail" such as the spate of letter bombs sent recently to Israeli diplomats in many countries, one of which killed the Israeli Agricultural Attache in London last week.

In his address tomorrow to the Assembly, Rogers reportedly will urge all nations to pool efforts to combat terrorists such as the Black September group that was responsible for the murder of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich Sept. 5. He is also expected to seek coordinated international efforts against terrorism at a meeting in Frankfurt next week of the international police organization, Interpol.

SANCTIONS TO ELIMINATE HIJACKINGS

Eban said after his meeting with Rogers that the US Secretary of State had indicated "great sympathy" with Israel’s need to concentrate against the "terrorist plague." The Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned that Rogers did not suggest, at his meeting with Eban, that Israel refrain from bombing terrorist strongholds in Lebanon as it did after the Munich murders or from ground sweeps in neighboring countries to flush out terrorists. The JTA was told that the subject of reprisals did not arise at the Rogers-Eban meeting.

Rogers reportedly stressed to Schumann US concern on the need to combat terrorism and indicated that the US would press hard for sanctions to eliminate aerial hijackings, a common form of terrorism employed by Arab guerrillas and others. US moves in that direction in the UN have strong Congressional backing.

On Thursday, the US Senate overwhelmingly adopted a stern anti-hijacking measure. It gives the Federal Aviation Administration both the authority and means to impose total pre-flight screening of passengers and their carry-on baggage at all American airports. It also establishes Presidential authority to impose unilateral sanctions against other nations failing to take appropriate action against hijacking and hijackers. The Senate bill demands harsher penalties for hijackers–an attempt to re-introduce the death penalty for that crime, a penalty struck down by the US Supreme Court last June.

ISRAEL WILL HIT TERRORISTS

Israeli sources in Washington were reported to feel that the US has moved closer to Israel on the Mideast situation as a result of the Munich killings. They cited President Nixon’s strong statement against the Arab terrorist killings in Munich and the US veto two weeks ago of a Security Council resolution which urged an end to all military action in the Middle East without referring to the Arab terrorist attacks, as the US had sought.

Eban reiterated previously reported assertions by Israeli sources that Israel would hit at terrorists and saboteurs, adding that "it is not our obligation to sit back and have the terrorists cut our throats." But Eban rejected the idea that Israel was refusing to negotiate for a Middle East settlement because of its current stress on combatting terrorists.

Eban told reporters that he had raised with Rogers the issue of the "ransom" demands of the Soviet government against university-educated Russian Jews seeking to emigrate. But he declined to comment on possibilities on a US linkage of Soviet Jewish emigration to American-Soviet trade agreements now being discussed by the two nations. Eban stressed that public and governmental opinion should be brought to bear on the Soviet Union "precisely because we do want co-existence."